Ellie

by Lesley Pearse

  But Bonny intended to show them all what she was made of. This job as a chorus girl in a seaside variety show might not look much to anyone else, but as far as Bonny was concerned it was a springboard to bigger and better things.

  ‘Which way to the audition?’ Bonny asked a man in shirt-sleeves who was sweeping the path up to the Pavilion.

  He looked her up and down and smiled. He was at least sixty, with a swirling, military-type moustache, and she recognised him as the man who usually sold tickets for the concerts and dances here.

  ‘Go on in,’ he said, pointing towards the café door. ‘Someone will tell you when it’s your turn. Good luck!’

  Bonny had reminded herself several times on her way here that the Pavilion was little more than a long, low hut, without proper tip-up seats or a big stage, and that therefore they wouldn’t be too choosy. But to her surprise there were already some thirty other girls waiting in rows in the café, already changed into practice clothes. They were all older than herself, many of them distinctly glamorous.

  ‘Your name?’ A woman in a dull, green dress with a frizzy halo of orange hair came towards Bonny, a clipboard in her hand.

  ‘Bonny Phillips,’ she whispered, unnerved by the other girls’ stares.

  ‘Have you got your music with you?’ Again the woman didn’t look up, merely ticking off her name on her pad.

  ‘Yes.’ She could hear a girl singing next door in the concert hail and she was better than Bonny.

  ‘Change in there.’ The woman pointed towards a cloth-covered screen set up in the corner of the café. ‘Then wait here until your name is called.’

  Bonny emerged from behind the screen some few minutes later feeling despondent. Two other girls who sounded far more experienced than herself were already dressing to go home again, having been dismissed. She had learnt too that so far only five girls had been asked to stay for a second audition.

  Her despondency increased as she sat in the café, listening to girl after girl perform. She wondered now if her short flared satin tunic with matching knickers smacked of village dancing classes. Most of the other girls were wearing old, much darned ballet tights and leotards which, although shabby, at least gave them an aura of professionalism, and their whispered conversations revealed that none of them were strangers to auditions. Would Mr Dingle see her as a complete novice and dismiss her immediately?

  Mr Dingle, whom she caught a glimpse of every time the concert hall door opened, looked formidable. He wore a beige, linen jacket with a rose in the buttonhole, fair hair artistically long, and the expression on his face was one of weary exasperation.

  Bonny thought he must be fifty at least, because he’d escaped call-up, but his face was smooth and unlined, and his features rather feminine. Without even speaking to him she somehow knew he would be a hard taskmaster, the kind of man immune to her brand of flirtatious charm. Just the sardonic smirk he gave as he dismissed the girls who weren’t up to his exacting standards suggested he’d be cruel too.

  Bonny rarely considered herself anything but the best, but as she heard other girls sing, her confidence plummeted. She couldn’t see them dance, of course, and she was certain she could give them all a run for their money where that was concerned. But where were the fat, the short, the clumsy that she’d expected? Four out of every five girls here looked like beauty queens!

  She squeezed the little black cat Jack had given her. He’d won it at a fair in Bognor at Easter. When she’d put it in her case this morning it had seemed childishly superstitious: she firmly believed she had enough talent not to need luck too. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Jack was one of her main reasons for wanting this job. She was certain what she felt for him was love. His kisses were thrilling, his hard body made her tingle from head to toe, and he was the best friend anyone could have. But he was getting so serious, and she felt trapped.

  In Amberley Jack was well known and respected. No doubt he would one day own a garage, since he worked so hard. But a small voice inside Bonny kept reminding her that there was a big world outside Amberley, one she needed to explore and taste before committing herself to Jack. She suspected there might be other men who could make her feel the way Jack did, ones with even better prospects and no engine oil beneath their fingernails. A summer job away from him would at least give her some breathing space.

  A girl with red hair was belting out ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ and her tap-dancing sounded as good as Bonny’s own.

  ‘Thank you, Margaret,’ Mr Dingle called out as she finished. ‘Stay behind please for a second audition.’

  ‘Bonny Phillips,’ the woman with the green dress called out.

  Bonny jumped up, dropped the black cat, clutched her music to her chest and ran into the hall. She was beyond wondering if ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ was a good choice – she’d rehearsed it so often with Aunt Lydia she knew it backwards. She handed the music to the pianist, jumped up on to the small, bare stage and switched on her smile.

  Ambrose Dingle winced as the girl began to sing. Her voice was too sugary for his taste and he found it a little presumptuous on her part to choose a number which Eleanor Powell had immortalised in Lady Be Good. She was much too young too.

  But as he watched the girl he began to forget her tinny voice. She could dance and she had the kind of confidence he liked. He glanced at the list in his hand. Only fifteen, as he’d suspected, no experience except in panto and village dancing displays. But she did live locally.

  Ambrose Dingle had begun his theatrical career as a song and dance man in music hall. During the thirties he’d taken a chance and gone to America, intent on getting into a Broadway show. He never made it to Broadway, but he did become the dancing partner of Lois Lombard and toured America with her during the Depression. Lois was spotted by a talent scout and became one of Busby Berkeley’s chorus girls. Ambrose took the only job on offer, as a stage-hand.

  In 1938 Ambrose came back to England, his dreams of becoming a Hollywood star shattered. All he had in his favour was the knowledge of what made a spectacular show, a firm grounding in choreography and the determination to make the name Ambrose Dingle as well known as Busby Berkeley’s.

  The war had been his saviour, yet a curse. People wanted glamorous variety shows, yet dancers who met his Hollywood standards were hard to find. He’d staged small shows like this up and down the country, collecting girls with talent as he went. When the war was over he intended to get his ‘girls’ on to the West End stage and forget these provincial concert halls for ever.

  This blonde had the makings of a real showgirl. Long, slender legs, dramatic large eyes, and a perfect body. Perhaps he could just give her a try.

  ‘Thank you, Bonny,’ he said as she finished. ‘Wait here for the second audition.’

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Bonny burst into the Tollgate garage, dropping her vanity case to the oily floor. ‘I’ve got it, Jack!’

  Jack was lying flat on his back under a car, but at Bonny’s excited shriek he hauled himself out. The double doors were folded right back to let in the fresh air, but the smell of oil, exhaust fumes and rubber tyres in such a small place was overpowering.

  ‘Well done,’ he said, getting to his feet and grinning at her. Deep down he’d hoped she wouldn’t get it, but the excitement in her voice and eyes shamed him into being pleased for her. ‘I’d like to hug you, but I’m filthy.’

  ‘You’re always filthy,’ she said, torn between disgust at his oily hands and grimy face and a desire to kiss him regardless. ‘Can’t you wash and come and have a cup of tea with me to celebrate?’

  ‘What, now?’ Jack looked scandalised. ‘I can’t knock off in the middle of a Saturday.’

  Bonny pouted and perched on a high stool by the garage door. ‘I want to tell you all about it,’ she said. ‘I can’t in here.’

  She’d overheard Sally, one of the other dancers, say she was being taken out to lunch to celebrate getting the job and seen her swanking away down the promenade
on the arm of a Royal Marine. Bonny felt she should have similiar attention.

  ‘Bonny, I’m dying to hear about it.’ Jack sighed deeply. ‘But I can’t break off from this job, I’ve got to have it finished in a hour. Go on home and tell Miss Wynter. I’ll take you into Arundel tonight if you like and you can tell me everything then.’

  It was no secret any longer that they were sweethearts. When it got out last year, Miss Wynter had read him the riot act, warning him she would get him locked up if she discovered there was any ‘hanky panky’, as she called it, but she seemed to accept Jack’s intentions were honourable. Jack wanted to keep her approval and he’d lose it pretty quickly if he was seen to be a conspirator in Bonny’s latest plan.

  Jack was eighteen now and he loved Bonny with a passion that often terrified him. Just a touch of her hand made him tremble, a day without seeing her seemed like a month and she was on his mind every waking hour. But there was no peace in loving her. She wound him up, teased him, played with his feelings, belittled him and wounded him; yet each time she put her lips on his, pressed her body against his, he was lost.

  He looked at her now, sitting on the stool, and he wanted to crush her into his arms. She sat provocatively, legs crossed showing just enough honey-coloured thigh to enflame him still further, her arms folded, pushing up her breasts, and her lovely mouth pursed in reproach. He had learnt a long time ago that he had to stand against her demands, but it was so hard.

  ‘I don’t know that I want to go to Arundel with you,’ she said peevishly. ‘I might ring Belinda and see if she wants to go to the dance tonight.’

  Jack turned away, sickened by her manipulations. ‘Go home and tell Miss Wynter your news,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve finished work.’

  ‘I might not be there.’ Bonny jumped down from the stool and picked up her vanity case. ‘I may have found someone by then who is interested in my job.’

  ‘Bonny, I am interested.’ Jack’s voice rose in anger. ‘You know that perfectly well. But I have to get this job finished. Don’t be so childish!’

  ‘Childish, am I?’ She put her hands on her hips and looked scornfully at him. ‘Well, I wasn’t too childish to be picked out of two hundred girls. Mr Dingle said I was the best dancer he’d ever seen.’ In fact there were no more than sixty girls and Mr Dingle hadn’t singled her out in any way from the ten he’d finally chosen, but Bonny always added a great deal of embroidery to every story.

  ‘I’m really glad for you.’ Jack lowered his voice again. ‘I want to take you out and celebrate. I want to hear every last thing about the audition. Please be reasonable.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ She turned away and walked off.

  Jack stood for a moment, tempted to run after her, but he looked back at the car and decided against it. Bonny Phillips wasn’t reasonable. She probably never would be. Perhaps it was as well that he’d had his call-up papers today. As Mrs Baker had said, ‘A spell away from that young minx will do you a world of good.’

  ‘Ambrose Dingle is an excellent choreographer,’ Lydia said reluctantly. She didn’t know him personally, only by reputation. ‘But he’s a hard, difficult man, Bonny. I’m glad, of course, that you’ve been chosen, but I think you’re too young still for this.’

  Lydia had guessed Bonny had something up her sleeve when she disappeared this morning, but it had never occurred to her she might go to an audition without talking about it first. Now Bonny was saying she’d not only been taken on but would have to stay in digs once the show left Littlehampton and moved on to Bognor and Worthing. And she wanted to leave Mayfield right away to start rehearsing.

  ‘But it’s what I want,’ Bonny said indignantly. ‘Some of the other girls are my age too.’

  ‘Have you thought about what your parents will say?’ Lydia asked, imagining Mr and Mrs Phillips arriving on the next train, blaming her. ‘I don’t think they’ll be happy about you living in digs. And what happens at the end of the summer? You can’t just go back to Mayfield when you feel like it.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back there.’ Bonny folded her arms and looked insolently up at the ceiling. ‘I’m a dancer, not a shorthand typist. When this show’s over I’ll find another job.’

  ‘Now look here.’ Lydia felt anger rising. She loved Bonny, but at times she didn’t like her one bit. ‘You are only fifteen, and I’m responsible for you in your parents’ absence. They’ve paid good money for you to go to college and they’ll be bitterly disappointed if you don’t finish your course. You think you can run rings around me, them and everyone else, but it’s high time you stopped being so selfish and gave a moment’s thought to those who care about you.’

  ‘It’s my life,’ Bonny said, walking away from Lydia towards the door. ‘I’m going to do what I want with it.’

  Lydia felt deeply for Mr and Mrs Phillips. She had helped in Southampton during the bombing and she’d experienced first-hand the terror, the loss of life, homes and dreadful injuries that city dwellers had to endure. Bonny’s parents had been bombed out twice, returning to their house in the middle of winter with just a tarpaulin over the roof until it was mended. Looters had taken many precious belongings, furniture damaged by fire and broken glass. Mr Phillips not only worked by day but stayed behind at Ford’s to fire-watch, and in one raid he’d been burned so badly he was hospitalised. On top of the lack of food, and the shortages of everything that made life bearable, they were separated from their only child. Yet Mrs Phillips strained her eyes nightly making dainty underwear for Bonny, all their clothing coupons were used for things Bonny needed, and they’d saved every penny for her future.

  The war had hardly touched Bonny. Aside from bombers flying overhead, a few explosions in Littlehampton when mines on the beach blew up in bad weather and reports of bomb damage in Chichester and Bognor, she knew little. The closest she’d come to the war was on one trip home to Dagenham when her parents had insisted she spent the night in their Anderson shelter. Even a bus ride out through the devastated East End of London hadn’t really brought home the hardships city people suffered. Bonny was well fed, and she had pretty clothes and dancing lessons when other girls her age were hunting for fire-wood on bomb-sites, or queuing for rations. She knew nothing and cared less.

  ‘Don’t be like this,’ Jack pleaded with Bonny as they got off the bus in the village. She had been silent all the way home, refusing even to hold his hand. They had gone into Belinda’s Tearooms in Arundel and failed to notice the time as they were talking. By the time they got to the cinema all the seats for Clive of India were taken. ‘We can go and see it some other time. I didn’t realise you wanted to see it so badly. It’s an old film anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she snapped. ‘But seeing drippy Ronald Coleman is better than talking to you. All you’ve done is take Aunt Lydia’s part and throw cold water on everything. Now you tell me you’ve been called up. What am I supposed to do?’

  It had never occurred to Bonny that Jack might want to go in the army. As an apprentice he could probably get out of it. But to her surprise, Jack actually welcomed conscription, believing he would gain valuable experience working on army transport and help his country at the same time.

  Jack caught hold of her shoulders, pushing her gently towards the shelter of the churchyard wall. It was still light and people were out in their gardens. Jack was very much aware that his every last move was reported back to Miss Wynter.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he said, looking right into her eyes, trying hard to articulate all the conflicting emotions inside him. ‘You know I love you, but everything’s against us right now because you’re so young. I’m not pouring cold water on your dancing job either. I only tried to point out your parents won’t like it any better than Miss Wynter. Please kiss me and say you aren’t mad with me?’

  ‘I’ll kiss you if you come in with me now and try and talk Aunt Lydia round,’ Bonny sniffed.

  ‘Okay,’ Jack said wearily. He didn’t believe
he could influence Miss Wynter, but perhaps she’d see his call-up as a sign that one of her problems was shortly to be solved.

  Bonny softened the instant Jack’s lips touched hers. She adored kissing and hours and hours of practice had made her very good at it. Hardly a night went by with Jack when she wasn’t deeply tempted to let him go further, especially on those warm evenings out in the fields when no one was about.

  Jack groaned softly as Bonny pressed herself closer to him. He wanted her so badly that at times it consumed him. How many more nights could he stand the torture of constant arousal with no relief?

  Bonny opened the door and went into the hall. The sitting-room door was open but Lydia wasn’t there.

  ‘She must’ve gone out.’ She turned to Jack, hovering nervously on the doorstep. ‘Come in anyway, maybe she’s left a note.’

  Jack shut the door behind him and followed Bonny.

  A note was propped up on the sofa table.

  ‘I’ve been called out to Bognor,’ Bonny read aloud. ‘Lock the door but don’t bolt it. I can’t say what time I’ll be back so don’t wait up.’

  ‘I’d better go, then,’ Jack said, knowing Miss Wynter might be angry if she found him there when she got back.

  ‘No.’ Bonny’s eyes sparkled, her tongue flickering across her lips. ‘You’ve got the perfect excuse for being here. If she turns up we’ll just make out we’ve just come in and you want to tell her your news.’

  Jack knew it wasn’t a good idea, but Bonny was already pulling over the black-out and curtains. ‘Just for a short while, then,’ he said reluctantly. ‘If she isn’t home within half an hour I’d better go.’

  They rarely had the comfort and privacy of a softly lit room. As Bonny snuggled into his arms, Jack soon forgot about Miss Wynter and the promises he’d made to her. Within minutes they were lying together on the big sofa and passion flared up like fire in dry hay as one long kiss led to another.

  ‘I love you,’ Jack whispered, his finger fumbling at the buttons on the front of her dress, reaching in to cup one full breast in his hand. ‘You are so beautiful, I want you so badly.’